iPhone users are more loyal than Android users, and let’s not get started about RIM

So there! According to research firm Gfk, 84 percent of iPhone users plan on continuing with the platform while only 60 percent of Android users feel the same way about their own platform. Even more depressing news for RIM, only 48 percent of Blackberry users are loyal to that platform. These are some pretty drastic differences we’re seeing here.

Keep in mind, this is just extrapolated data. They only polled about 4,500 people from a pool of nine countries: the US, the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Brazil, China, and Japan. Meanwhile, many, many millions of people use phones (both dumb and smart flavors). Statistics are a tough thing because they can so easily be exploited based on many factors including how the polling was done, how the data is analyzed, and how the conclusions are presented. Please, please take everything with a huge grain of salt.

For the sake of the argument, let’s just say that these numbers hold true. What do they really mean? Truth be told, I think it means what Apple has been saying all along: Controlling the whole user experience makes for a higher quality product and happier users. I’m sure Android will continue to sell well because there is a large number of people who don’t care about UX, and only shop based on price-spec comparisons. That’s just a section of the market Apple doesn’t care about though.

As the phone market continues to mature, I will be interested to see how user-happiness plays a role in repurchases. We’re still seeing an influx of first-time smartphone buyers jumping in these days. If someone buys an Android phone as their first phone, and they are part of the 40 percent, I wonder which phone they’ll go for next.